There were scribes before Enheduanna and many after her. Some were female, according to Amanda H. Podony, a Professor Emeritus of History at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her presentation on this topic, Clues in Cuneiform: Lives Revealed in Ancient Records of Mesopotamia, was offered online at Getty Museum in 2021.
While she agreed Enheduanna is one of the most celebrated authors of ancient times, cuneiform was also used for practical matters like contracts and agreements, as well as sharing information and keeping accounts.
The one thing not common in this culture was fiction writing. She said there was little evidence to lead to the belief that they used their newfound invention of writing to write novels.
"They don't seem to have read for pleasure or written for pleasure," she said. "And what's really striking is the number of things they didn't think of writing. They had this writing system that they used for 3,500 years, and they never wrote diaries or journals. They don't seem to have thoughts of writing fiction. They have myths and legends that they would tell that they enjoyed, but nobody sort of sat down, as far as we can tell, and came up with a complete fiction out of thin air for fun."